Sukima no Kuni no Polta

"A Country Between the World" is a short story of a little guy named Polta, and his little adventure that he goes through in one day.

The story begins with Polta singing a song on his guitar, as he makes his way back home from an adventure one sunny day-- when suddenly his friend asks him (okay, TELLS him) to get her handkerchief that has gotten stuck in the mud in the middle of the desert. So it centers that concept the whole time during most of the 5 minute video, and stays pretty centered on that plot. All along the way the trio (Polta, some ... hippo looking thing, and some white birds) having fun in their attempts to get it. Since it is so short, they happen to come across it right away of course, but they also seem to fail in their first attempts to get it...will they succeed? Hmmm...
As far as the overall video goes, the characters actually do a surprising amount of things during the run--from singing, to searching, to simply enjoying themselves. Though I feel I should warn you, they also do it in a somewhat childish way, just in case that's not your thing.

The animation on this is pretty weak for the most part, the characters are all drawn quite stiff and flat. But the color that went into it was pretty...uhh...colorful as it were? Since the story begins in a sort of "coloring book" kind of segment, it seemed to at least fit the theme of the short; as many of the characters and environments looked explained in a sort of a crayon style color.

As far as sound goes, there really is no opening or closing theme to this. Just a beginning that seems to sound like that of a babies’ tinker toy. The whole time the video plays out it is narrated, (by the person who drew the world) and he seems to have a very somber and relaxing voice to him. The characters themselves do talk as well, but only in a sort of mumble and other gibberish sounding tones. I really found their voices to be quite catchy for characters who don’t really have any actual dialog to say. The background music is pretty strait forward with its bouncy happy tune. Nothing really special about it though.

I liked all the characters to this, while none of them really display any kind of personality other than joy and curiosity, they were still pretty fun to look at. Which really is what this short is all about, having fun! Even when things don’t go their way they seem to be happy. Sure the characters seemed to be child like...but wouldn’t that not be an important way of looking at situations in real life? That even when things don’t go the way we want them to, sometimes all we need to do is make the best of a bad situation. Which is the sort of feeling I got after viewing this. Polta and his lady friend were probably the most amusing part of the title, since the others only seemed to be there to lend a helping hand.

The video may be too childish for some viewers, and not having any actual dialog from the characters may hamper the enjoyment a little too. But I have to say that this short was probably one of the "better" ones I have personally seen in a while. It's not technically superb in any of its aspects. But it does put you in a good mood after watching it, and isn’t that what makes it all worth while?